Custom Production Presets

As you’ve been able to tell by reading (or skimming) through this chapter, there are an unbelievable number of settings available to you when producing your final video. To help you cut down on the sheer number of choices you have to make, TechSmith came up with a neat addition called custom production presets. If you’re planning on using a particular set of production options relatively often, you can save these settings under a name of your choosing, and then just call them up whenever it’s time to produce. Suddenly, with just a couple of clicks, you have everything set up just how you like it. Additionally, these presets can be used in conjunction with Camtasia Studio’s Batch Production feature, letting you use that preset on several projects or videos at once - more on this in Chapter 15, “Other Output Options.”

To get started building your custom production preset, do the following:

1. On the main Production Wizard screen, choose Production Presets.

2. You’ll have a drop-down list available with the names of all your custom presets. Since you probably haven’t created any yet, it’s likely to be blank. Let’s remedy that by clicking the Manage… button.

3. The Manage Production Presets dialog appears. Click New….

4. Enter a new Preset name and corresponding Description, and then choose a Video file format. Click Next.

5. Based on the file format you chose, you’ll have the same series of options as if you’d selected the file format from the main Production Wizard screen. Just set your options accord- ingly, clicking Next to move on to the next screen of options.

6. When all your options have been selected, you’ll be taken back to the Manage Production Presets dialog, where you’ll see your new preset in the Production Presets drop-down list. The currently selected preset’s information will be clearly displayed in the lower half of the dialog. At this point, you can add a New preset, Edit an existing one, or Remove any preset you no longer need.

7. Click Close to exit the dialog and use your new preset.